I think the tea was actually inspired by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Summer's hard - I admit it here - summer is hard, especially coming back from my magical mystery year at Swarthmore. All the little routines I didn't know I had - picking up the Phoenix in the coffee bar on Thursday mornings to read over a cup of chai before Spanish class; circling ML calling "Dinner? Dinner, anyone?" before walking to campus; remembering not to wear a skirt on Tuesdays, when I worked in the greenhouse, but changing in the evening for folkdance - I don't have them here to lend a framework to my minutes and days. The structure I used to have, built out of cross-country meets and select choir rehearsals and AP homework - also gone.

And I'm left with the unsettling realization that life is made up of a series of moments. One brief activity follows another, and in the formless freedom of summer I lose track of what holds it all together. If I'm not careful, I spend my time diverting myself from the previous diversion. I make tea. I check my email. I knit three rows on Hollis' scarf, get up to change the record, eat an ice-cream bar, read five pages of a magazine, turn off the record and pick up my guitar only to discover that I don't know what I want to play.